Reviews and Comments

The second in the His Dark Materials series, after The Golden Compass. The story gets markedly weirder as it starts moving between worlds. It ends with a cliffhanger, so I'm glad that I had the next book handy.

Disappointing. Bujold's weakest in a long time.

A heady stew of dialect and cultural references that I don't feel like I picked up on, suffused with vivid imagery. At its core, the characters' stories were strong and sympathetic. Every action they took made sense, and that held the book together despite the chaos going on around and within them.

Dave loaned this to me. It was really good. Adventurous kid's book with plenty of plot twists and a sense of menace.

Pretty good, but not great Blade adventure. Interesting whodunnit elements. Less compelling plot than usual. Duncan's been introducing more and more magic elements in these books that are making the world harder to believe.

Erik loaned me the UK edition. It's good — a solid adventure with plenty to think about. It's a refreshing departure from a lot of the issues raised in the Culture books, set in what feels like a more densely populated universe. I felt like the resolutions of some of the plot threads were forced, though. Things just fall into place too easily.

I didn't actually finish this. It was too dense, and focused on Mercator's life rather than his work. Perhaps I would have enjoyed the later chapters more.

Barker's best when writing villains. He gives them real motivations: they're not mindlessly evil, they're vengeful or greedy or so tired that they'll do anything. Overall, this was a good, but not amazing fantasy novel. It was well-layered, with several different threats operating in parallel rather than just being one thing after another. I was surprised by how little of the fantasy world we actually get to see.

Odd. Intricate. I'll probably have to re-read it to really understand everything that was going on.

This is the third in a neatly-dovetailed trilogy (after The Gilded Chain and Lord of the Fire Lands) that describes the same events from three different perspectives. The first two conflict in important ways. Not trivial "Well it might have seemed that way to you, but..." differences. Huge differences in plot.

Duncan had me wondering if he'd just forgotten what had happened in the first book well into the third, but, once I realized how it could work out, I could see the setup going way back. Very well crafted.

And, incidentally, great tales of adventure to boot.

This caught my eye in the Lima airport. It's Isabel Allende's first foray into "young adult" fiction, and it happens to be about the Amazon (where we were headed next). How could I resist?

I was a little disappointed. Some books in this age category stand up well to older readers, but this one tried too hard to make sure its messages were understood.

Started this, found it very good, but too dense for my attention level. I'm saving it for my trip abroad, when the density in such a thin book will be a great time/weight ratio.

It was very good. At times bizarre and meandering, but always mysterious and deep.